Life Matters, No Matter

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. —Jesus (Jn 10:10)

The thief is Satan and his weapon of choice is temptation. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Evil is all around us in thought, manifest in sins of word and deed. Jesus came to destroy the power of sin, death, and deliver us instead into eternal life through faith. Faith is our shield from Satan and our sword for battle is the Spirit, the Word of God (cf. Eph. 6). Still, while Christ remains the victor forever, Satan remains at the helm of temptation, seeking to destroy life redeemed in Christ. He wants children to remain unborn, the born in sin to remain without Baptism, or better yet, murdered by abortion. He hates babies because Jesus became flesh, was begotten and incarnated into Mary’s womb. Jesus was a babe, permitted to be born, and ultimately escaped Satan’s every effort to murder him.

Every January hundred of thousands make a pilgrimage to Washington D.C. to voice their support for life in The March for Life—an event as old as the Roe v. Wade decision (1973), which legalized abortion on demand. For over 40 years the King of Thieves has stolen away our children through temptation’s smokescreen of legality and choice ideology. He has told women that their choice is good and their only option is abortion. His whispers both convince women and confirm them in one way, to freedom and in another way putting ease to their fears. What really happens is that abortion does not give freedom or leave fears behind, it marks a woman for life. Some embrace the mark, and call it good. But a life taken is always a life marked with darkness. Christians cannot forget this. Christians ought to be prepared to know that whether a woman understands her mark or not, they are called to be the voice of light. We cannot forget the death of the unborn child. We cannot forget the woman marked with this darkness. We cannot forget that women who embrace the darkness need the Law and the Love of Christ. We cannot forget the women who have lost their motherhood, or the men who have lost their fatherhood. No matter the situation, by choice or by corrosion, Christ loves the lost. Because they matter to Him—the unborn to the elderly, the healthy and ill. He died for the lost, the broken, the shame-ridden, the happy, and sad. And, He died for you! Christians are called to pray and voice the truth of the Gospel, that Jesus came to establish a life of faith and an abundant life eternal! Christians have God’s Word, science, and philosophical truths that together coincide in making the case for life.

To supplement your conversation with anyone, Christian or not, provided here is an acronym called S.L.E.D. This tool serves to establish the personhood of the unborn—use it in love:

Size—Level of development—Environment—Degree of dependency

If value is measured by size, larger people are more human than smaller ones and generally men become more human than most women. Size determines nothing!

If value is measured by level of development, embryos and fetuses become, to some, less than human. The logical extreme of this view uncovers the absurdity that a four-year-old child is a lesser human when compared to a more developed fourteen-year-old.

If value is measured by environment, how does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the unborn nonhuman to the born human? Where you are does not establish who you are intrinsically!

If value is measured by degree of dependency, at what point is someone truly independent? The subjective nature of dependency reaches beyond a child in the womb, from needing insulin medicine or an inhaler to the very basic needs of food and water. Each comes from outside of an individual, making all people dependents to some degree.

Everyone is equal in their personhood because they share a common human nature. Humans are valuable themselves, not for anything else they can be or do. Individuals have intrinsic value. And this innate worth, comes from the hand of God who created you!

All human lives matter from the moment of conception; be they a black child, a child who one day claims they are gay, or any other child. Christians can affirm their theological beliefs about sin, even particular sins, without denigrating the worth of some or all people. Christ came to save all people, not all people however wish to be saved.

It’s the prevailing culture that teaches you cannot value people if they hold a different worldview. This is why the culture of death, the pro-choice worldview, is all-the-more wicked. It leads with the existential lie that existence precedes essence, meaning that one’s worth is in what they do, not in who they are. Does the black life have worth because they are black or because they are human? Does the gay person’s life have worth because they are gay or because they are human? All human life matters not because I, individuals, or someone else subjectively gives it worth but because it contains essential intrinsic value for what it is, a human life. That’s objective worth.

I leave you with this troubling but hopefully helpful illustration. Think of the suicidal person, whose existence is in turmoil, be it because they or another has put them in the state of mind that they are worthless. The existential worldview, which is aligned with pro-choice ideology, would give credence to the possibility that this suicidal person may not contribute much to their own existence or the existence of others. For the sake of this illustration, lets say it’s an undeniable fact that their contribution to themselves and others is quite little. Do you try to comfort them or just let them harm themselves? If you’re not as pro-choice as that worldview is, if taken to it’s logical conclusion, how do you comfort them? “Try harder”, “workout more”, “get better grades”, “change your looks”, do, do, do! Or, do you tell them that regardless of their downfalls they have worth? That they are valuable regardless of their skin color, false identities they’ve placed their trust in, and more valuable than anything that they’ve falsely placed their subjective worth.

Most seek to encourage with the latter because they knowingly or unknowingly recognize (intuitively recognize) that when we choose to hate ourselves there is is something wrong. When we hate the essence of who we are, we’ve falsely placed our worth in our existence and in the things we’ve done or left undone. This is why in the Christian worldview we confesses our existential crisis’, our sins, and rejoice in Christ who forgives and loves us.